Paddy Power launches World Cup campaign with Professor Stephen Hawking

Betting chain Paddy Power, famed for its mischievous PR stunts, has kicked off its World Cup campaign by commissioning the author of A Brief History of Time to solve the mystery of how England can succeed in Brazil.

Professor Stephen Hawking has solved the mystery of England's World Cup success for Paddy Power

Hawking used "general logistic regression modelling" to divine the optimum conditions for England to succeed as well as how the team can triumph in the dreaded (and inevitable) penalty shootout.

Paddy Power worked with Taylor Herring, which also helped it hijack the Brits with its Daft Punk impersonators, on the project, which analysed the key factors affecting England's performance in all 45 of their World Cup final matches since 1966.